Ebony and Ivory
by PutMoneyInThyPurse
Summary: A series of oneshots in black and white. Latest: Whipping Boy, an AU.
1. Brother

The Tanzanian Ambassador, six-foot-nine and wiry with it, strode along the narrow red carpet that snaked along the corridors of his country's Conference Center, his long tread propelling him forward at a rate that forced his Department bodyguards from America to jog to keep up with him. Slip-sliding on the marble tile on either side were various Tanzanian Embassy aides, attachés, and agents from that country's security and intelligence departments.

As they rounded a corner, Kelly's loafers skidded on the polished floor. Automatically, Scotty reached out and hauled him into balance before he could fall. Kelly regained his footing in an unnoticeable instant, the two of them shifting into equilibrium in motion by dint of long practice, eyes not even meeting as they scanned the halls for threats to their charge. The little fumble had taken no more than a second when they resumed their little jog behind the Ambassador, the Zambian aides watching the exchange curiously.

Moments later, they were in the conference room, watching the man Scotty had dubbed "Basketball Ambassador" ascend the podium. He and Kelly took the right side along with two Tanzanian agents; another pair of Department men, accompanied by more Tanzanians, secured the left. "Ladies and gentlemen, my dear colleagues," the man began, and Scotty settled into Relaxed-Alert mode, Kelly at his shoulder scanning his half of the room.

"Brother," whispered a Tanzanian Embassy attaché – Ajabu, if memory served – to Scotty in Swahili. He was on Kelly's far side, so Scotty had to talk across his partner to speak to him. Kelly automatically took a half-step forward so the conversation could take place more unobtrusively behind his back.

"Yes?" Scotty answered in the same language.

"I wish to ask you a question, if I may be permitted."

"Speak freely, brother," Scotty replied.

"Does it not pain you to associate with such a person?"

"I'm not quite sure I take your meaning," Scotty replied, in careful, formal Swahili.

"I had imagined the American government gave its agents some leeway in selecting their partners. Why would an honorable tree with roots in the Old Country waste its time and pollute itself by associating with the ilk of those who enslaved our ancestors? It is clear that you are carrying him; he is weak, and white, with the incompetence and arrogance of his race. Can you not request a person of proud African origin?"

"Well, I _could,"_ Scotty replied slowly, carefully, mindful of the conference room and the security detail, "but then he might turn out to be a bigoted fool like you, see, saying stuff he doesn't understand about a man worth a million of him, and _then_, you see, I'd have to rip his guts out and stuff 'em down his throat."

The man snapped sharply to attention, eyes front, and Scotty, with the merest twinge as he caught sight of his partner's innocent profile, went back to scanning the room, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.


	2. Conscience

_Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he WAS most free--and who was to blame for it? Why, ME. I couldn't get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't rest; I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every time, "But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody." That was so--I couldn't get around that noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me, "What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. THAT'S what she done." _

Kelly closed his eyes and shook his head, sick to his stomach. He had no idea why he'd had the idiot notion to re-read _Huckleberry Finn _in the first place. Probably because his partner was on a patch of Twain at the moment, and it was one of the books Scotty had had knocking around when they'd stopped over in D.C., and Kelly'd been looking for a little light reading. Boy, he had only himself to blame then.

He looked at the clock. Scotty wasn't due back for another hour. He wasn't hungry. He'd already showered. Too early for a martini. Besides, it was only a book. He wouldn't let a book get the better of him. Doggedly, Kelly turned the page.

_Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an Ab'litionist to go and steal them. _

_It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, "Give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell." Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children--children that belonged to a man I didn't even know; a man that hadn't ever done me no harm. _

Kelly's stomach turned. He slapped the book shut and jumped up from his bed, pacing the room, running his hands through his hair, feeling shaky and physically ill.

He was being an idiot, he told himself. If Scotty were here, he'd be the very first to laugh him out of the room, and tell him he was being an idiot. It was a book written what, seventy, eighty years ago? And it had been nostalgic then. It was completely irrelevant to their society now. It meant nothing. Sc—nobody was a slave anymore, hadn't been for decades. And it had absolutely no bearing on his proud partner. He knew that!

_Give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell._ He broke out in gooseflesh, and wrapped his arms around himself as he paced. He hadn't read the book since he was a kid, and he didn't remember it having this effect on him then.

It hadn't been personal then.

_And it isn't personal now,_ his mind told him._ It's not. It has nothing to do with… with anything. _But the thought of it, of how things might have been, if it hadn't been 1968… the very thought chilled him. _If their master wouldn't sell them. _He took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Going for the four-minute mile?"

Kelly whirled as Scotty came through the door. "Nah, calisthenics." He did a couple of stretches which he hoped looked convincing. "You're early."

"Yeah," Scotty hauled out his suitcase, "new orders. The map's been moved to a different location. We gotta vamoose."

Kelly didn't even ask where, he just bent at the waist and dragged his case out from under the bed. "Just as well. I kind of wanted to blow this joint anyway."

His partner's voice was muffled as he stripped off his shirt. "Marta shoot you down again?"

"Something like that." _ When he got enough he would buy his wife_. Kelly bent over the dresser drawers, dragging out his shirts and dumping them into the case. His stomach roiled again, and he wondered for a moment what Scotty would say if he threw up into his suitcase.

Still shirtless, Scotty emerged from the bathroom with a handful of toiletries, dumping them on Kelly's bed, on top of the paperback of _Huckleberry Finn. _"You done with this?"

Kelly was a good agent, one of the best, and a good actor to boot. His heart pounded loudly enough to shake the room, but his expression was neutral and bland as he said, "Yeah. Just got done while you were out."

"So I can take it back then?"

_They would both work to buy the two children._ "Oh yeah, sure, Homer, don't let me stand in the way between you and your culture."

Scotty's hand reached out for the book, and Kelly's eyes followed it, followed the man's skin up his bare arm, to the strong shoulders, the brown, cleanly muscled chest, to the proud curve of his neck, to his refined, cultured face, and felt a nameless wrench, as though his insides were being ripped out and stuffed back inside the wrong way around.

"You feeling all right, Kel?" Scotty asked, a flicker of concerned incomprehension in the clear, intelligent eyes.

Kelly didn't quite swallow, but his eyes went to the book, and Scotty's followed them, and Kelly saw the flash of understanding.

He held his breath. Somehow, he had never been so humiliated in all his life. If Scotty laughed—if he made fun of him—he would—he couldn't take it.

But the dark eyes softened, with a kind of shock, and another kind of understanding, deep enough to tell Kelly his partner wasn't going to laugh. The bright face curved into a gentle smile, and Scotty looked down at the battered paperback, turning the pages. "You know, I never showed you my favorite part," he said gently.

He placed the paperback on Kelly's bag, holding it open and pointing to a passage. Kelly was almost scared to read it as his partner half-smiled at him again, eyes deep and bright with gentle understanding and affection, and turned again to resume his packing.

_So we poked along back home, and I warn't feeling so brash as I was before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow--though I hadn't done nothing. But that's always the way; it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same. _


	3. Encounters

Scotty pushed the luggage cart a few feet ahead in the long, serpentine check-in line and turned to Kelly, who had to suppress a smile at his aggrieved expression. "You are just so unoriginal, man. Can't you think of anything more creative to say than Montezuma?"

"Aw, it's part of our great Mexican culture, Clyde, what have you got against Montezuma? Porcelain God of the Afflicted…"

"You think you're real funny, don't you, Duke."

"So I can't call you Montezuma?" A glare from Scotty made Kelly mock-wince. "Monty, then? Can I call you Monty?"

"You could if you wanted to go through life without your two front teeth."

"No go, huh? Mr. Foxtrot, then?"

"Uhhh, duty calls. Au revoir." Scotty dumped his passport and ticket into Kelly's hands and made a beeline for the airport restroom.

Inching forward in the check-in line, Kelly smiled affectionately at the hurriedly retreating figure in jeans and sleeveless shirt, practically jogging through Taipei International Airport. Although the 'runs' had been an occupational hazard when they'd first started touring the globe, it was unusual, with all their traveling, for anything to disagree with their stomachs any more. It wasn't unheard-of, though, and some exotic Singapore flavor of ice-cream had been Scotty's undoing. Since the attack hadn't been painful or severe, and its effects limited to visiting the bathroom as many times a day as Scotty spoke languages, it had served mainly as a never-ending source of hilarity regarding Scotty's taste in food, his fortitude, his… Hey!

Kelly's head turned appreciatively. A vision of loveliness in a smart sleeveless dress had just walked in through the revolving door and gravitated to the end of the endless line of tourists, businessmen and screaming babies that had formed behind Kelly, snaking halfway round the large hall. Huge blue eyes and long, silky strawberry blonde hair complemented her hourglass figure to make a perfect picture. Hmm, maybe there were some upsides to being stuck in line so long after all…

Looking back casually, Kelly caught the blonde's eye, waited for her to register the spark of attraction, and waved enthusiastically. "Honey, I'm over here!" She blinked, staring at him blankly. He made a big, full-armed, arcing 'come-over-here' wave. "About time you showed up! Come on!"

Hesitantly, then with a growing smile as she recognized his ruse, she wiggled her way over to him, dainty pink matching luggage balanced neatly on her cart, and he waved her into line ahead of him. "Thank you, Mr…" she smiled.

"Kelly Robinson. At the service of stunning beauty everywhere."

"You're too kind."

"Indeed I am not, I speak only the truth, your mesmerizing beauty would make Aphrodite blush in shame."

The smile grew broader, showing pearly white teeth. "Quite the scholar, I see." She tilted her head appraisingly, not a little flirtatiously. "Let me see… Harvard?"

"Indeed I would wish it were Harvard, if only to prove you right, my dear, unfortunately it is Princeton."

It was always good to see the spark of approval in a woman's eyes, especially baby blues that sparkled like Scandinavian skies. Chalk one up to the Ivy League. "Really! My brother was at Princeton too, Mr. Robinson."

"See, great minds think alike." He was careful not to ask questions; seduction was a fine art, and not pushing was the finest part.

They pushed their luggage forward as the line advanced. "And what do you do, Mr. Robinson?"

"Oh, please, call me Kelly."

"Kelly, then."

"Now, I'm not accustomed to giving particulars about myself to a lady whose name I don't even know."

The clear blue eyes sparkled at the mating game. "Am I to take that as a refusal to tell me?"

"Now, what man in his right mind would refuse you anything? I merely mean it as a request." He bowed slightly, chivalrously.

Apparently it had been the right thing to say. "Well, if you put it that way… Angela Chandler."

"Ah, candlestick-maker, much more your level than butcher and baker."

She laughed aloud at that, her laughter like a silver bell. "You're too clever for me, Mr. Robinson!"

"Now what did we say about first names, Miss Chandler?"

"Angela, please," she giggled, looking at him from beneath her lashes. "But really, you're too well-armed in the battle of wits, Mr…" she caught herself, "Kelly."

His name even sounded better on her lips. "Blame it on my trainer. He taught me everything I know."

"Your trainer? You're a…"

"Tennis player." Suspense built, now was the best time to answer her long-deferred question. "You may have heard of the Hong Kong Masters that just wrapped up. I was in third place."

"Oh!" He loved how women always looked his body up and down when he told them what he did, as though looking for clues that would link his performance on the court to his performance in the boudoir. "That is…"

He paused, glad to hear Scotty's voice at his shoulder. "Rejoice! I have returned from my journey into the lands of the unknown, and I see you have found a charming nymph with whom to pass the time. A veritable Aphrodite, far as we are from Cyprus, yet her beauty shines like the morning star!"

"Ah, the return of the native!" Kelly turned to Scotty, handing him back the passport and ticket he'd entrusted to Kelly on his emergency departure. "Here is your map of the darkest jungles, Dr. Livingstone." Hands now free, Kelly clapped Scotty lightly on his bare upper arms, and smiling with pleasure, he took a half-step back to stand alongside his partner, slinging a fraternal arm around him. "I was afraid the Creature from the Black Lagoon had eaten you, man," he said in a theatrical aside, then turned back to Angela with an introductory smile. "My loveliest Angela, allow me to introduce my long-suffering trainer, Alexander Scott…"

But the blue eyes were cold, cold and shocked, and she took a step back, sparing a look at Scotty's face, then staring in horror at Kelly's hand where it rested on Scotty's shoulder.

Faster than an impulse along the nerves, it registered, chilling Kelly's heart. His arm tightened around his partner, fingers digging into his flesh. "Whatsamatter, honey?" he said softly, hearing the dangerous tone in his voice, unable to stop it. "Aren't you going to shake hands?"

She made an inarticulate sound, her eyes going from Kelly's face to Scotty's to where their skins met, the chalk-white face hard and set and horrified, the rouged lips parted, and Kelly felt a wave of revulsion course through him, as though he had been about to kiss a snake. "I think you need to go back to the end of the line, lady."

She shut her mouth with a snap—her eyes were hard as blue glass, her face twisted, ugly, _man, _his judgment was lousy, how could he ever have thought her beautiful—and she was gone, heels clicking on the polished floor as she joined half the population of Hong Kong at the end of the queue.

Scotty's soft voice slipped through his cold trance. "Now, was that nice, making a lady go the end of the line like that?"

"That was no lady," the reflexive quip came out before he could stop it, "that was—" he had to swallow before he could go on, "—a mistake."

"Well, hey, Hobey, we can't expect everyone to have perfect judgment, you know. And especially compared to me, your mental capacities? Not all that hot."

"Got _that_ right." Kelly's teeth hurt from being clenched so hard, and he shifted his jaw to ease the tension, hissing in a breath. His mental capacities were definitely subpar. At the thought that he might have gone to bed with—with— his body tensed in disgust, hating himself and the world. Dammit, what did he have to do, what did he have to do to get rid of this, this—

"Kelly," Scotty's soft voice came again. "Kel."

He took in a breath, consciously relaxing his muscles. "Yeah." He was being selfish again. Scotty was the one who'd been insulted, and here he was making with the self-indulgence. He schooled his face to a neutral expression—a smile was beyond him, and he figured Scotty would have seen through it anyway—and let go of Scotty's shoulder, moving to face him. "Yeah?"

"It's okay. Really."

"No, it isn't." It would never be okay, and it hurt, Goddammit. His partner was the most perfect thing in the entire universe, and that no-account dame had looked at him like— "I… I'm such a chump, I…"

"Hobey," Scotty's smile was gentle. The line moved forward and they pushed their cart ahead a few spaces. "What, you think I never had a girl run out on me because she felt I was violating some kinda, I dunno, some kinda unwritten rule of racial purity?"

Kelly gaped, stunned.

The smile became a full-out, ironic grin. "Remember last month, in Nigeria? Remember that cute little assistant at the research lab?"

Kelly cast his mind back. It was more of a chore than he'd thought, having to shove aside the memory of the cold blue eyes and then dig through the clutter of the tennis that had crowded his mind for the past three weeks to get at older memories. Then he found her, and brightened. "Yeah, uh… Oni, right?"

"Uh-huh."

Scotty didn't elaborate, just kept looking at him with those amused, wise, kind eyes, and Kelly had to do a couple of mental calisthenics to place the incident. "I remember you told me there was this chick who was giving you the eye…" An encouraging flicker of Scotty's expression. "And I remember I met her one time when you weren't there… and I told you she was cool but for some reason she wasn't all that friendly…" Then the lightbulb went on. "Oh! So that was because…"

"Yeah, 'cause she had rocks for brains."

Kelly couldn't help a little smile at that.

"Kept goin' on and on about rebuilding their country with native hands. And that was real groovy, and I figured she's just got national pride, y'know? Then she started in on the innate cowardice and baseness of the Caucasian race—and her a scientist! Killed the mood good and dead, I'll tell you that much. I mean, I hadda get out of there if I was to have any hope of ever getting it up again."

A helpless laugh burst out of Kelly. "You never said!"

"Hey, my manhood was being threatened! I didn't have time to run a newscast! She was riffin' like Louie, and me, man, the longer I'm listening, the more I'm, y'know… just shriveling up."

Kelly laughed long and hard then, doubled over. It was rare for his partner to be so raunchy with his humor. "So how did you save your manhood, Samson?"

Scotty shrugged, his expression mild. "I figured I'd go for broke. Told her my adopted brother was white."

Kelly fell silent, speechless.

But Scotty's tone was still light. "I told her this touching story about how they bathed us together as babies, nursed at the same teat, the whole nine yards."

Kelly couldn't help smiling again. "Boy, when you pull out all the stops, you pull out all the stops, don'tcha, Homer?"

"All in defense of my future abilities," Scotty said virtuously. Then the dark eyes filled with amusement. "I'm surprised the windows didn't shatter."

"Ran out of there screaming, did she?" Kelly chuckled.

"Knocked over an experiment doin' it."

"An exper…? Now wait a minute. You told her that in the _lab? _What were you doing in the lab?"

"Well, yeah..." Scotty endeavored to look sheepish, but it was swamped by the sheer smugness of his expression. "She invited me in there after hours."

"Now really, Casanova, I'm ashamed of you. Alone in a deserted lab, after dark, with a girl scientist. Tch, tch."

"With rocks for brains," Scotty reminded him. They moved forward again; they were now first in line.

"With rocks for brains," Kelly agreed, feeling his heart lift inexplicably.

"Uh, Holmes?"

"Yes, Watson?"

"Here." Scotty dumped the passport and ticket into Kelly's hands. "Keep the home fires burning, willya?" He rushed off in the direction of the men's room.

Kelly stared after the retreating dark head. His White Knight. His Galahad. Everything that was pure and true and good about him, in his life, all wrapped up in one package. How had he ever gotten so lucky?

"Next!"

He stepped up to the desk clerk, still wondering at his good fortune. "Window or aisle seat, sir?"

"Oh…" he shook himself out of his reverie. "Just give us something next to the restroom."


	4. Missing Scene, 'West of Nowhere'

Notes: Thanks to Allthinky for beta'ing. Whatever I want to say, she makes me say better.

And to Leviathan0999, for roping, er, dragging, er, *getting* me into this fandom.

This is a missing scene from the episode 'A Few Miles West of Nowhere'. It follows on a scene where Kelly and Scotty, on a mission to the fictional hick town of Bracket, USA, are lured into a dry riverbed in the dead of night to eavesdrop on a protest meeting. There is no meeting - it's a ruse by the townspeople, who stand on the banks and stone the two agents into unconsciousness. Yeah, you read right. It's pretty horrific, and great TV.

* * *

The sensation of regaining consciousness with a pounding head, usually from being struck with a blunt object, wasn't new to Scotty. He'd come to in dark alleys, locked rooms, exotic forests, any and every location you cared to think of.

It just took a while to get a fix on where you were and who'd knocked you out _this _time, was all.

Something soft was under his head – fabric, and he could make out Kelly's familiar scent. Which meant Kelly had pillowed his jacket under Scotty's head as he usually did when Scotty was knocked out.

Good, good. So, both him and Kelly, alive and conscious. And together. That was, however you sliced it, a very groovy start to the rest of the—hmm, evening, it looked like, or night. Sand and stones under his body, like a dry riverbed. Stars above. Outdoors.

His fuzzy mind continued taking in details, his focus narrowing to a hand caressing his temple, cool fingers stroking his aching head. He should be embarrassed, but it was kinda nice.

He sighed, and the hand withdrew. "Welcome to Bible class," came the sardonic voice from above him.

Memory came flooding back, and he started. "Th—"

"They're gone." Kelly reassured him sharply, then his voice settled into its familiar groove. "I would strongly recommend strict economy of movement, my dear sir, unless you wish to aggravate—"

Scotty ignored Kelly's warning, rolling up to a sitting position, regretting it, groaning. "Man…!"

Kelly's tone was still deceptively mellow, but there was a hardness underlying it. "Think any of them was without sin, Apostle Paul?"

"Oh, man—" He wasn't even up to the banter, burying his face in his hands. The ache in his body wasn't too bad yet, although he knew from experience that tomorrow would be a different story. But that wasn't what chilled his blood.

"Scotty?"

Perhaps there _was_ such a thing as the collective unconscious. He'd always considered it iffy at best – the idea that either humanity as a whole, or else a certain group, a certain population, a certain race, could _recognize_ certain things without having ever seen them, feel things as familiar that they'd never actually felt, just by the images in the minds of their ancestors, passed on from generation to generation…

"Scotty?"

He'd seen it tonight.

It had happened because he and Kelly were city slickers, he knew. It was insularity, not the other thing, he told himself. It was because of the atomic plant—he knew that! But the sight of the mob of white men, ranged at the edge of the cliff with their guns and torches in a long, gleeful line, silhouetted against the night sky, throwing their stones with such deliberate cruelty, and laughing, laughing—it had swept through him like a chill storm-front, echoes of a thousand memories, heard and read though never seen or experienced. And it wasn't something anyone white would understand. Nothing Kelly would understand.

He couldn't make a joke to save his life. He raised his head, wondering how he was going to shake it, how he was going to hide it, how he was going to explain it away, this sick, miserable feeling, the burden that had settled within him—

But then he looked up, and saw the same terrible understanding already there in Kelly's eyes.

Scotty couldn't speak. His throat worked as he tried to tear his eyes away from that grief-stricken, silent gaze, older than Kelly's years, old with the weight of the world that had settled as suddenly on Kelly's shoulders as it had upon his.

And a thread of the burden lifted as he flooded with the realization that he wasn't alone. Not even in this. Kelly was in here with him, and the dumb, overused, mendacious cliché that skin color didn't matter was actually true, if only in here, inside this space that he and Kelly shared. Room enough for everything in here. Even the collective unconscious. It was all there, _here_ in Kelly's eyes.

He cleared his scratchy throat, almost embarrassed by the depths in the earnest gaze. "Catch your death," he said, motioning imperatively towards Kelly's wadded-up jacket on the ground.

"Your wish is my command, sir," Kelly said slowly, reaching for his jacket without looking at it, not breaking eye contact for a second, his gaze searching now. He was saying clearly, _We're in this together. I'm __**with**__ you. Do you get that?_

Scotty nodded slowly, slowly. Nothing had changed, but suddenly he could relax into this shared, comforting space as he saw in Kelly's eyes the shared grief, the shared outrage, the shared trip to a place they tried to forget even existed, that had nothing to do with _them_, but had suddenly come to life and reared its ugly head in stereophonic sound and living color. "Why didn't they send…" he muttered, "…plague of flies?"

"Out here, they wouldn't notice it anyway."Kelly exhaled, his tone searching for levity. "Should try being out in the fields with a picnic basket in the middle of the day, man. Bible plagues had nothing on my uncle's farm."

"Is that so, Li'l Abner." Scotty made to rise, stumbled. Kelly steadied him, lurched. Leaning on each other, they began the arduous process of staggering to their feet.

"Yes indeedy. Have you ever known me to speak untruth?"

"You're a spy, sir, and as such, by your very occupation, it behooves you, on occasion, to tell a lie." Upright, they stood, steadying one another for a moment.

"Behooves? Now, my dear sir, in truth—"

"Behooves," Scotty said firmly, standing up and taking a few tentative steps back whence they'd come.

Kelly's tone was all urbane amusement. "I've never been behooved before."

"First time for everything." Scotty stumbled and Kelly lunged forward, supporting him.

"Steady on there, Pard. Ah do believe yew got a few more knocks than Ah did."

_"No, _I didn't." The last thing he wanted was for his grim theory to be confirmed. The _last_ thing, and Kelly's awful cowpoke impression only re-awakened his sense of that gulf. Besides, did it matter which one of them the men had aimed for more than the other? They'd both been attacked. They were on the same side here.

"Wanna compare notes…?"

He knew Kelly just wanted to check on him, but it felt like he was driving a wedge between him and the only— "No, I do _not—_" He jerked violently out of his partner's grip. The move flung Scotty into a graceless pirouette and he thudded to the ground at Kelly's feet.

"Sorry. Sorry." Kelly bent to retrieve him, but didn't make any funny comments, just helped Scotty up with that shared sadness in his eyes again, only now it was overlain with an expression that was crushed, yet accepting, as though he somehow deserved the rebuke. As though Scotty thought for one moment that just because of the color of his skin, Kelly bore _any_ similarity to those… those… Scotty felt like a heel.

"Hold it…" Still unsteadily clinging to his partner's supporting arm, he muttered, pitched loud enough for Kelly to hear, "Compare notes my Aunt Matilda! You just wanna say you got more bruises than me. Sibling rivalry's really gettin' out of hand, man…"

He felt Kelly go still, felt the long seconds in which he didn't breathe, felt the understanding of what he was saying filter through his partner, felt the shaky exhalation coupled with the tightening of the hand on his arm. When he finally spoke, his "Oh?" was tentative, little more than a breath.

"You betcha. Mom would chew us both out. 'I thought I raised you boys better!' " He thought it was a pretty decent imitation, himself. "Comparing her kids was never her bag, y'see."

_Her kids. _Scotty could practically hear him rolling the phrase around in his head. "That's not… the kind of observation you hear every day," Kelly finally said.

"Well, maybe you ain't been listening."

Another deep breath from Kelly. "Maybe."

"Gotta listen up, you know, or you tend to miss things."

"So I've heard."

"'Course, getting stoned by a mob makes one miss things, sometimes."

"True, true."

He let his seriousness show in his tone. "Not the important things, though, not never."

Kelly swallowed. It was a moment before he spoke again. "Not—not never is a double negative, man," he gulped, his feigned disbelief covering a multitude of feelings Scotty could recognize anyway.

"I believe that in the list of extenuating circumstances," Scotty assumed his professorial tone, "allowing one to use a double negative in times of stress, is the running of a gauntlet of hostile rednecks throwing stones."

"Ah, see, Chester, you relax the rules once, you open up a slippery slope. One little stoning, you slip a little, let it slide, who knows where you'll end up?"

"At the motel, I hope," Scotty said lightly, taking another tentative step forward, Kelly at his elbow. "In a nice hot bath. I'll even drive."

"Well," and Kelly's tone was steadier, "I wish you would."

Scotty was surprised to find his heart considerably lighter as they limped back through the ditch to the car. _Who knows where you'll end up? _He didn't know how or which path it would take, and he wasn't entirely sure, even, where he would end up, but he'd lay dollars to little green apples that he knew who'd be at his side.


	5. Recommendation

**AN: An explanation of what the Green Book is, can be found in the story 'Soul Brother' in my fic collection Sarah's Grab Bag of I Spy Drabbles, here on FFN.**

* * *

"C'mon, man! Just sit on it!" Kelly whines. "We're gonna miss the train to Philly if you don't help me out!"

"I oughta charge for this," Scotty complains, but parks his rear end on Kelly's suitcase, which obediently clicks shut. "Did you forget the tickets like last…?"

Kelly heaves a long-suffering sigh. "A guy makes one little mistake…"

Scotty scoops up his own suitcase. "We had to drive for three hours out of our way to get them! Russ was breathing fire!"

"Russ the Magic Dragon." Kelly slaps the envelope with the tickets against Scotty's chest. "Here, Dragon-Slayer."

Scotty sets down his bags and flips through their papers, nodding approvingly. As he reaches the end of the packet, he finds an extra envelope, sealed and unaddressed. "What's this?"

"Ah! I've been looking all over for that," said Kelly. "Shoulda known you'd be hiding it."

"Oh, sure, blame me," Scotty says good-naturedly, handing it over. "What is it, anyway?"

"Good hotel," Kelly gestures vaguely around him. "Recommendation for the Green Book."

"Kelly," Scotty says seriously.

Kelly tenses. "What?"

"When you make a recommendation to the Green Book," Scotty intones, "it helps to have the _address_ written on the _front_ of the envelope, you know, where you put the stamps?"

With a heartfelt snort, Kelly shoves him out the door. "This is the thanks I get for enriching the travel guides of the nation…"

"I know you're a spy, top-secret agent and all, but there ain't an address so secret that the mailman's not allowed to know about it…"

"Ah, sure, complain, complain…"

And eventually, somewhere between Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, a letter is dropped into a mailbox.

* * *

"There are thousands of first class business places which we don't know about and can't list, which would be glad to serve the traveler, but it is hard to secure listings of these places since we can't secure enough agents to send us the information. Each year before we go to press the new information is included in the new edition.

When you are traveling please mention the Green Book, in order that they might know how you found their place of business…"

_The Green Book,_ 1949 Edition. p.1


	6. Whipping Boy

The thin, sharp sound of Kel's switchin' echoes through the farmhouse windows. Alex crouches in the tall crabgrass by the fence. One day he'll leave that crabgrass behind and fly away, but not today.

Today he listens to Kelly getting punished; his pal 'fessed to breaking the crystal vase, even though it was Alex's mom what done it. He didn't ask Kel to do it; but Kel knew, from the dark stains on the barn floor, what would happen to Alex's mom if his folks found out, and didn't give Mom a chance to 'fess up, didn't even give Alex time to set in motion his own half-formed plan of owning up to the crime – Alex 'splained to Kel that maybe he'd just get sold 'stead of whipped half-dead, and Kel said over his dead body and ran off and told his Papa that it was him—

Alex winces at the whistling of the switch and the _thwick_ as it lands on Kelly's legs, not sure why it hurts him so to listen. He's listened to a passel of whippings, and it never gets any easier, and he knows he ought not to care about a white kid getting switched. And yet it's so rotten to listen – it's like he can feel Kel hurtin', almost hear Kel bite back his hollerin'. Kel told him he'd just get spanked with a brush, that nobody in his family got the switch till they were thirteen. Well, looks like his Papa made an exception, since he's only got six months to go. Alexander bows his head at the sound of the switch cutting into his friend. He knows what the merciless hickory does to the skin, and he knows that with how valuable the vase was, Kelly will be laid up in bed for days.

It's hard to believe, and it makes him sick to think on it, but Kel's right: this is actually the _best_ outcome there can be, to this mess. Alex wishes that things could be better, but though he's nine, nearly a man, he has no idea how to change it. Except… he's heard about the North._ New York. _He lets it sing through his veins. Kel's taught him to write, and he's better than his pal, though he does say it himself. One day he'll write papers for himself and his Mom and brother and sister, and be gone far away from here.

He wonders if Kelly'd come, if he asked him real nice. He can only hope. But hope is a luxury, where he lives.


End file.
